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In Seattle, for example, you can apparently get by on $256/SF for a fancy new 40 story condo tower. That's not even in a low-regulatory environment.

Rent costs are primarily supply/demand driven. In the bay area, locals (via their governments) have been severely limiting the supply for a long time, otherwise the higher rents would drive increasing construction until they stabilized at a point closer to the rest of the country (or even State).

Eventually, our spaceships are going to be working on limited supplies of fuel, and "just using solar power" or some other alternative source of energy isn't gonna work out real well.

Solar works quite well for me, as it powers all of the servers at my workplace.

http://www.djc.com/news/en/11202007.html

You are correct that the heat is not a waste product and should be dealt with accordingly. I've re-ducted the 'waste' heat from our company's servers to help heat the rest of our building during most of the year.

Here's an article I wrote about the effort: http://www.djc.com/news/en/11202007.html

Next week, the EPA is even giving us a national award for the effort.

Tacoma, Washington recently decided to add another span to their overloaded Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge. (You might remember the original one was Galloping Gurdy... yeah, it's that bridge.) The designer who created the new bridge came up with a great idea... the Tacoma Narrows is known for having insanely-fast currents while the tide is coming in and going out. His idea was to put turbines in the base of the bridge tower to generate power during the tide shifts. Selling the generated power would, over the course of a few dozen years, pay for the construction of the bridge while at the same time providing clean energy to everyone nearby. Win-win!

But of course, this is Washington Wacko-Environmentalist State. Instead, his plan was cancelled because the Wacko-Environmentalist movement decided that turbines, even covered with safety grilles, would kill fish-- and God knows that the lives of 3 fish a year is more important than tons of clean power! So now the bridge has a conventional base with no turbines and, as an added bonus, all of us non-wackos have to pay TOLLS to cross it!

http://www.djc.com/news/en/11180913.html
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/508 2737p-4630866c.html

None of this is really relevant to the article, but since this got modded +5 I had to respond.

Uhh, on the bad urban planning award. Seattle has:

1. They already had light rail (Trolley system), and removed it. In fact, I bet at some point it is going to cost money to move the equipment that is under the street. See this image of the counter balance, for example.

2. Due to the fire and sewage problems, Seattle actually raised ground level of downtown up one story to bury their problems. For a period of time, store fronts were underground, and people used ladders to reach them!

3. Seattle actually spent money bulldozing a large hill (See this pic of the denny regrade)

4. Traffic continues to be a problem.

etc, etc.

-Sean (OutdoorDB - The Outdoor Wiki)

Problem is, not much tangible progress has been made in the last 15-20 years, however. For instance, the CAFE standard for passenger cars is 27.5 mpg, and that hasn't changed since 1986. The increase in the use of SUV's and pickup trucks certainly hasn't helped either. Heck, I remember my dad making a presentation to my 3rd grade class on the electric van back in 1978, but 25 years later that's not much closer to commercial viability. If you listen to the auto companies, however, they still keep saying "only a few more years..."

Calling it a concrete rocket is a bit misleading however IMHO - if it is like the boat, it's got a very thin layer of concrete ( < half an inch) over the top of a structure made from another material.

What is more interesting is the concrete - waterproof, high tensile strength, etc. etc.

Sure, Kevin. I'm a 42-year-old guy with a degree in engineering, but who happens to find all this breakneck-paced technological development fascinating; I guess it suits my temperament. In that my daughter is going into the field (genetic counseling, which apparently combines the disciplines of genetic and ethics; she wants to help people make decisions in light of the advances available to them via genetics / proteomics et al). I find it incredibly fascinating (I think I mentioned that) because the ramifications of all this knowledge - what being able to do with it means to us as a culture and a society - are far-reaching. You yourself are going into the field of medical science and there are profound ethical questions you will wrestle with. I determined early on that I needed harder science, but found that my dilemmas were no less difficult. The arena of global thermonuclear warfare can be tricky as well.

It is good that you agree that public discourse on the subject is not only valid, but vital. I grew up believing in the ideal of the pure scientist, one for whom questions of ethics didn't really exist because his motives were purely driven by his inquisitive nature. In this day and age, unfortunately, that isn't the case. One can never be sure of an individual's trustworthiness; in fact it is the danger in this technology being delivered into the wrong hands that is often a big argument for continuing research wherever it might lead, so that we might be able to combat the "Dr. Evils' of the future world when they discover the technology independently*. This was also the argument in the 1950's for continuing research on atomic weapons. I don't have to tell you where that led: Plutonium Injections, the 'Green Run', and all sorts of environmental clean-up issues that persist today.

I don't know how to stop the incredible hubris of people, now that pure scientists don't exist so much anymore, or if they do, are overshadowed by greedy and evil men, or utter fools. But I can set them all up for one massive 'told ya so'!

What I meant about those questions should not need to be raised: hypothetically, sure, but perhaps not in real life. My kids have a cousin who was born to two Moms... so far, so good. Oh! That made me think of a fleeting thought I had about an hour ago. Such births to me (sorry if I offend) are not about loving a child, they are about people having a child for themselves. I actually do consider such acts selfish ones. Creation of a child out of Love comes only from God. There goes the Luddite side of me again. I sincerely do not get all excited about the possiblities of cloning. Genetics, sure, but not cloning. I am not a religious man, but I like to think I know God a little, and I am pretty sure that the job of creating life is still best left to Him. We are bound to cock it up!

BTW, you will almost Never see me comment on Linux issues or servers, although I read the posts. Programming in perl will have to be done in a future life. heh, maybe my clone will pick up on it...

One more personal note: you should not post as an AC, you have too much to offer this forum, and unless astute moderators pick up on your posts and elevate them, we might never get to see them.

*- and the fact that, as it turns out, cloning is not much more difficult than IV fertilization makes it especially dangerous. Very few people today can build a back-yard H-bomb.